And suddenly it's almost a fortnight since the last entry which was 10 days after the one before that. Doh. Must try harder. All of that time has been dominated by feeling fluey, starting just after the last blog entry and pretty much lasting up until this weekend just gone. I'm on yet another course of antibiotics but this one seems to be finally sorting me out. I did indeed take that last day off, previously alluded to in the last post, and had a relaxing day involving food and a bit of shopping, DVDs and an early night. Thursday and Friday I worked but was feeling progressively worse. I seem to remember early nights and not much else. The boys arrived back on Saturday from the States and we were all very quiet and well behaved. Until Bad Dog on the Sunday that is...! It was great as ever. I can't work out how they manage to keep them so good - maybe it's the music, maybe it's the venue, maybe it's the fact that they're only every couple of months, maybe it's the people. Or maybe a combination of all of those - but either way it works. We got there at 3.30pm and had a few beers outside before heading in to the more dance orientated second half of the night around 6pm. For me the highlights musically were a very long mix of Kelis's Milkshake and Herbie Hancock's Rockit - fantastic. Also they played a great remix of No Doubt's cover of Talk Talk's It's my life and a great mix of Toxic by Britney. Excellent. Originally the intention was to go home after it finished, but I was feeling no pain by that stage and so decided to carry on. We hit the Mars Lounge which was dull, the Phoenix which was empty and the Shift before deciding the best move would be to hit Arq and be done with it. It was definitely better there and I decided to hang on in long after everyone else had gone. Oops. I kind of needed some time out and about with no one around. In the end I headed home around 7.30am! I bumped into Pete on the station platform which was a bit of a hoot. I got home and was feeling a bit listless but wide awake and so I took myself off for a bit of relaxation. Ahem. That's all you need to know! I got home later in the afternoon and then just had a quiet night with the boys - watching Tomb Raider 2 on DVD.

Tuesday was work and feeling ill again. I was sent home around 3.30pm which was a bit of a result. Later the boys kindly drove me to the airport to collect old flatmate Nick, who's here for a holiday until 8 April. It's been great to see Nick again after almost 3 years and good we've kind of picked up friendship-wise where we left off. Yay! We had a brief dinner and then came home and I caught up with Nick until about 11.30pm. Wednesday was work again and this time I only made it until just after lunch. That gave me a bit of time to relax before we went to dinner with Adrian and Shane. It's been ages since I've caught up properly with them and long overdue. After that we had a couple of drinks in the Colombian before retiring back home. Thursday morning was my birthday! And a doctor's appointment. He signed me off until this week and gave me some more horse tablet sized antibiotics. Nick and I then headed off to Bondi and walked to Coogee, via milkshakes in Bronte. Had a lovely birthday lunch overlooking the beach at Coogee and then walked back again via coffees in Tamarama. Back to civilisation and the up to meet Aaron for dinner in Newtown followed by drinks at the Newtown pub. Pete joined us later and it was gone midnight by the time we got home. Nice day :o)

Friday I slept until gone 10am and the woke Nick up. We had brekky at home and then went into town for some shopping action. Initially we were looking for things for Nick, but it was me that bought stuff - shoes, shorts, t-shirt and new electronic toothbrush (after the last one went all 'Terminator' on me and turned itself on one night without me touching it!). We'd arranged to hook up with a couple of people on Friday night too, as it was Aaron's birthday. We ended up at the Oxford with Pete and Johnno, Pete and Bobby, Aaron and Costa and Michael. Suddenly it all went a bit mad and we were upstairs at the Shift having much more of a night than anticipated. So much so that we decided to stay when Pete and Johnno made their move at 5pm. The drag shows were surprisingly good and there was even a bit of flirting action with a very sexy sculptor called Jason. I'm very much hoping to run into him again... We finally made a move around 6am and went for coffee in Potts Point before Pete decided we should do a day trip to Bundeena National Park. So we hit home, showered, changed and packed some provisions before meeting back at Central. We trained, ferried and hiked - forcing brekky down somewhere in between until we finally got to the most fantastic secluded beach around midday. What a fantastic afternoon. We swam, lazed and drank and managed to run into someone Pete knew even that far away from home! We hiked, ferried and trained back and arrived home just after 6.30pm. What a day! We'd still not slept at that stage, but we decided to kick on regardless. Sleep is for girls and the fat lady hadn't even been warming up and it was birthday drinks celebration time at Pete and Johnno's. The gang finally all turned up - Pete and Bobby, Rich and Russ, Pete and Gary, Aaron, Tim and Ross (with visiting friend Maria in tow). It was great having everyone together and nice for Nick to meet them and vice versa. Of course we had to carry on and suddenly we were at the Phoenix. Well Aaron, Pete, Bobby, Nick and me at any rate. Adrian and Shane were there too. It was very quiet and so Pete and Bobby did a reccy of the Shift and back over there we went. Fun, fun, fun. We went a bit mad and suddenly we were minker la-la. Hilarious! Again we couldn't let it lie and finally ended up at Arq again. Like you do. Or like we do! It wasn't that great, but after about half an hour they closed upstairs and we shifted downstairs. Suddenly the music was great and we were off again! Aaron left and so eventually did Adrian and Shane. The remaining four of us finally went back to Rich and Russ's and polished off more vodka and coke than is probably good for us. Lots of funny singing and dancing and messing around. We changed Britney lyrics for Toxic to 'Don't you know that my dog's sick'. Kept us amused for ages! Pete finally crashed just as Johnno texted us to say they were at the Colombian. That kept us going and we had a couple of beers there before heading back to Newtown and picking up a takeaway. Home, eat, sleep. What a fantastic birthday weekend. And best of all I was feeling so much better by Saturday. Yay!

Today is back to the real world. Work - dull. Think this week might drag due to lack of sleep, but at least it's a short week leading up to Easter. Tonight is cheap and cheerful eats in Newtown with Pete and Bobby. That's about as far ahead as I can plan right now! More soon...